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Chasing Otters

The remains of an otter’s lunch. Otters that live by the sea eat all sorts of different animals and not just fish. This sea urchin must have made a very tasty lunch!

I really wanted to meet an otter on Skye. Otters used to be very common across all of Britain but since the 1950’s their numbers have dropped. This is because humans have changed the rivers and lakes where otters live; the water has become polluted because of changes in farming, there is less space for otters to live because of building, and there are more roads near rivers which otters get killed on when they try to cross.

Thankfully, our rivers are starting to get cleaner and now the numbers of otters has started to increase again. You can now find otters in every county in the UK!

Otters do not only live in rivers. I was told that there are quite a lot of otters living in the sea around Skye. However, otters are very shy, nervous animals and are very hard to meet! I spent a lot of time looking for them amongst the rocks but never managed to see one.

I did, however, see lots of signs that there were otters around! When otters catch a meal, they will bring it to the shore to eat. You can tell that otters live in the area because you find the remains of crabs, lobsters, sea urchins, mussels and anything else otters eat. Even though never met an otter, I was happy to know that there are many living in Skye and that they are eating very well!

I only eat grass and plants so have never eaten crab, but I’ve heard it’s very tasty. The otters on Skye seem to really like them because there were crab shells everywhere!

If you want to try and see an otter, the wildlife trusts have a guide of great places to see them here.